Paradise
by sinemoras09
Summary: Eden in LA. Four vignettes based on graphic novels 9 and 11. Takes place before Six Months Ago.


**Author's Note**: This is a series of drabbles based on Eden's life prior to "Six Months Ago." Since not everyone reads the graphic novels, here's some background: Eden accidentally killed her stepmom during a fight they were having when she told her, "I wish you'd just die!" Her stepmom died, their house burnt down, and Eden ended up going west. She worked as a hooker, but used her voice to trick the Johns into believing they were serviced; she also had drug and alcohol problems, and according to "Six Months Ago" she murdered someone in Oklahoma. This was originally going to be a multi-chapter fic, but I never got around to writing it, so I'm posting it as a series of vignettes instead. Enjoy!

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_i._

Her house burns and she walks away, a black silhouette against the rising smoke. And when the car stops and the driver asks her where she's headed, she speaks without thinking, her voice rolling out of her like thunder.

She tells him to go west. She has no reason to stay.

_ii._

She walks into the sunlight. The rain drips down the eaves of the store fronts, puddles reflecting sunlight like mirrors, a brightness covering the street like a yellow haze. It's so beautiful out here, she thinks to herself. So beautiful.

Just ahead of her, she can see the cars coming down the streets, bright blue streaks on black pavement. She notices the _fooshfoosh_ of the wind, the tires on the pavement, the billowing half-cloud of smoke from the tailpipes and the dusty road.

She finds a corner and juts her hip out, the bright pink swatch of skirt singing "sex" and so much more.

It's the perfect con.

_iii. _

He has her by the throat and her voice isn't working. "Let me go!" she says, but he's drunk and pissed off and he's not listening. She knows he wants sex and she won't give it to him, this nameless John she planned to rip off. A knife in his hand and the gleam of metal flashing in her eyes, and Eden knows what she has to do.

It's a stolen gun she uses, and when she shoots, his insides come bursting out, the shock of it on his face. She lurches out of the car, crying and screaming. It's not until later that she notices her tight leather halter-top is splattered with blood.

_iv._

She forces herself to forget the only way she knows how.

Two nights later, and Eden loses herself in the heat of the club. The flashing lights and the sweating bodies pulse together to the beat of the music, and even in her cheap black dress and her stringy hair tied back, Eden is a part of the crowd, losing herself among the hot throng of people around her.

When she dances, she dances alone, her eyes closed and her head thrown back. Suddenly she feels a hand on her waist, hips grinding against her ass. A man is behind her, and he roughly whips her around and presses against her.

The rhythm of the music is relentless, pushing and pumping like a beating heart. Gasps turn to grins and Eden yanks him against her. She's drunk with music, she's not thinking, and when she pulls him into the bathroom, it's not the sex she wants but the feeling of being needed.

He slams her against the sink and she claws at his shirt like a blind woman. Mouths open and panting, her arm whacking against the faucet and turning the water on, he pumps into her and she throws her arms around his back. The music around them pounds in the back of her head, growing louder and stronger around them, and when they climax she doesn't move. Instead she lets him slip out of her and straighten out his clothes. She tugs her dress back down and slides down the sink, and it's only then she notices that he's gone. She doesn't even know what he looks like.

She looks in the mirror and sees nothing but dark circles and bloodshot eyes, and with shaking hands she opens her purse and pulls out the pills. The air around her is hot and thick, the flashing lights bouncing off the particles in the air like sulfur, and after she swallows the pills, she knows she will feel whole again.


End file.
